The present invention relates to a system for displaying information to the public.
Communication of information to the public is a major industry. One of the major means of such communications is by publicly visible signs, including advertising signs. Signs have been in use for centuries, and have performed a valuable service of informing consumers about choices that are available to them. But advances in technology have made traditional signs seem somewhat out of date.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,060,993 issued to Eyal Cohen (the xe2x80x9cCohen Patentxe2x80x9d) discloses one possible system for displaying messages in advertisements on mobile signs, such as those placed on the tops of motor vehicles such as taxis. In this system a geographic area is divided up into separate zones and when a mobile unit makes a transition from one zone into another the controller located on the mobile unit determines when it has made such a transition based on a positioning system within the mobile unit, on a series of geographic zone definitions which it stores in its memory, and on a schedule indicating which messages are to be shown in which zones at which times. The Cohen patent is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The system described in the Cohen patent would appear to have many benefits, but it also appears to be rather complex, and, thus, it is desirable to have a system capable of displaying advertisements on mobile units as a function of their location which did not have as much complexity as the Cohen patent""s system.
It is an object of the present invention to provide for more flexible usage of signs.
It is another object of the invention to provide a system for displaying messages on mobile signs as a function of their location which reduces the amount of memory storage and computation required by the mobile units which make such mobile displays.
The present invention relates to a system for displaying messages on one or more mobile units as a function of the mobile unit""s location. The system comprises the following: at least one mobile unit in the form of a vehicle capable of moving in geographic space and a central system for controlling the displays on some or all of the mobile units. The mobile unit includes a display visible from outside the vehicle; a wireless communication system, and a controller. The wireless communication systems includes a transmitter for repeatedly transmitting a locator signal which enables a central system to determine the mobile unit""s location and a receiver for receiving messages from a central unit. The controller is programmed to control the contents shown on said display; read messages received by the wireless receiver; and respond to a display-selection messages from the central system by causing said display to show the selected message identified in such a message. The central system includes a wireless communication; a memory, and a processor. The wireless communication system includes circuitry for receiving wireless messages from (including the locator signals) and circuitry for sending wireless messages to mobile units. The memory stores a plurality of geographic zone definitions and an indication of which of a plurality of messages is to be displayed by one or more of said mobile units in each of said zones. The processor is programmed to associate a geographic location with a given mobile unit based on information derived from the receipt of a locator signal from the given mobile unit; to determine which of a plurality of geographic zones the geographic location associated with the given mobile unit is located; to select a given display message from a plurality of messages to be displayed by the given mobile unit based on the geographic zone in which the given mobile unit""s associated geographic location is located; and to send a wireless display-selection message to the given mobile unit identifying a selected display message to be shown on the given mobile unit""s display.
In some embodiments of the invention the mobile unit""s display is mounted on the exterior of the mobile unit""s vehicle, and in some embodiments the mobile unit has a plurality of such displays.
In some embodiments the mobile unit further includes a memory storing a plurality of display messages; and its controller is programmed to respond to a display-selection message from the central system by causing the identified selected display message to be read from memory and shown on the display.
In some embodiments the processor of the central system is programmed to select a sub-set of a larger set of display messages which are to be cached by storage in the memory of a given mobile unit; and to send a wireless caching message to the given mobile unit causing the given mobile unit to cache the selected sub-set of display messages. In some embodiments of the invention all the mobile units could cache the same display messages, but in some embodiments of the invention different mobile units will cache different display messages as a function of such things as their current location, their current destination, and their past history of travel.
Such a caching selection can be made as a function of one or more of the geographic locations which have been associated with the given mobile unit at one or more times, such as its current location, its current location in direction, as derived from a series of locations, or its history of travel over a longer period of time. In some such embodiments, the mobile units can include an input device enabling one of its users to input an intended destination for the mobile unit; the mobile unit""s controller is programmed to cause a wireless message to be sent informing the central system of the intended destination; and the caching selection is also made as a function of such an intended destination communicated to the central system by the given mobile unit.
In some caching embodiments of the invention, the central system includes a broadcast transmitter that broadcasts one or more data streams which can be simultaneously received by multiple mobile units; each of these data streams contains one or more display messages; and the caching message sent to a given mobile unit instructs the given mobile unit to cache one or more selected messages from said one or more of the broadcast streams.
In some such embodiments the broadcast transmitter is a UHF television station.
In some caching embodiments of the invention the caching message includes the sub-set of display messages which the central system has selected for caching by the given mobile unit.
In some embodiments of the invention, the display-selection message includes the contents of the given message which the central system has selected to be shown by the given mobile unit to which display-selection message is sent. This content can either be shown live, in real-time as the display-selection messages received, or can be stored and then shown from memory.
In some embodiments of the invention that do not necessarily include a caching scheme of the type described above, the central system includes a broadcast transmitter which broadcasts one or more data streams which can be simultaneously received by multiple mobile units, each of which data streams contains one or more display messages. In such embodiments a display-selection message is addressed to a subset of one or more of said mobile units instructing the members of the subset to display a selected one of the display messages contained in said one of said broadcast data streams; the mobile units includes a data-stream receiver capable of receiving a selected display message from one of said broadcast data streams; and the mobile unit""s controller is programmed to respond to the receipt of a display-selection message by: causing the data-stream receiver to receive the display message identified in the selected-display message; and causing the identified display message to be shown on the mobile unit""s display. The broadcast transmitter can be a UHF television station. The mobile unit""s controller can be programmed to cause the identified display message to be shown on the mobile unit""s display in real time as it is received from a data stream.
In some embodiments of the invention said mobile unit includes a GPS system for determining the geographical coordinates of said mobile unit; and said locator signal contains geographical coordinates information derived from said GPS system. In other embodiments of the invention the locator signal broadcast by a mobile unit does not encoded geographical location information; and the central system associates said geographical location which a given mobile unit based on information about the receipt of the locator signal obtained by the wireless communication system which receives such signals.
The mobile unit can have a plurality of displays visible from outside its vehicle (as well as one or more displays visible from within the vehicle). In such embodiments the processor of the central system can contain programming to separately select a given message from a plurality of messages to be displayed on each of said plurality of display; said display-selection message can include information informing a mobile unit display different selected messages on each of its plurality of displays; and the mobile unit""s controller contains programming to cause it to responded to a display-selection message from a central system identifying a separate display message to be shown on each of said plurality of displays by causing each of said identified display messages to be shown in a corresponding one of said displays.
In many embodiments of the invention the central system""s processor is programmed to select the display message to be shown by a given mobile unit based not only on the geographic zone in which the given mobile vehicle is located but also as a function of the current time. In many such embodiments the central system contains a memory storing a schedule which indicates which messages are to be displayed in which geographic zones at what times; and the central system""s processor is programmed to use the information stored in said schedule when making the selection of which display message is to be shown a given mobile unit as a function of both its geographic zone and the current time.
In many embodiments of the invention the central system""s processor is programmed to perform record keeping, including keeping record of which display messages are shown by mobile units and when such messages are so shown. Such record keeping commonly also includes keeping record of where individual display messages are so shown and generating billing information from said information about which messages have been displayed at which times.
In some embodiments of the invention the central system""s processor is programmed to record information about the location of each of a plurality of said mobile units, derived from the locator signals transmitted by such mobile units, at each of successive times, so as to record a history of the travel of each such mobile unit.
In some embodiments of the invention the central system""s processor is programmed to: determine, based on the receipt of a locator signal from a given mobile unit, how close the given mobile unit is to the boundary of the geographic zone in which is located; calculate how long it should be before the given mobile unit transmits each of one or more subsequent locator signal as a function of how close the given mobile unit is to the boundary of the geographic zone in which it is located; and send a wireless locator-signal-period message to the given mobile unit containing the results of said calculation. The controller of the given mobile unit is programmed to respond to the receipt of one of said locator-signal-period messages by causing the timing of the subsequent transmission of one or more of the given mobile unit""s locator signals to be controlled as a function of information contained in said locator-signal-period message. In many such systems said calculation of how long it should be before the given mobile unit transmits each of one or more subsequent locator signal is also made as a function of the speed of the given mobile unit. In some of the invention the mobile unit includes a speed sensor cable of determining its speed for this purpose. Other embodiments the central system can determine a mobile unit""s speed for this purpose as a function of the amount of distance the mobile unit has travel between the transmission of its most recent locator signals.
In some embodiments of the invention the mobile unit includes a sensor for measuring the speed of the mobile unit; and the mobile unit""s controller is programmed to vary the time between the transmission of locator signals as a function of the speed of the vehicle as measured by said sensor.
The present invention includes not only the overall system described above, but also novel sub-parts of that overall system, including the central system and the mobile units. The invention furthermore includes the novel methods of operation performed by cease the overall system and its individual components.